Japan - too serious not to be a thread on the main forum.

[Kapo_Polenton]

Nuclear technology will be the death of us all.. but yet, required to support the rate at which the population has grown around the world.

I have been to Japan a few times... looting and rioting doesn't seem to be in the nature of the people. Sure there are gangs and there are bad people but as a country in crisis, I see them less likely to descend into rioting and looting. There is a built in sense of order and civility which you don't always see in North America. The Japanese are raised respecting rules and their elders and although it can seem robotic at times, look how they treat one another in times of crisis. Even if secretly they scoff at rules, they usually follow them. Essentially if/when mankind ends, there are really two things that will destroy us:

1. Natural disasters which will destroy infrastructure
2. Us - we'll fight and destroy ourselves like rats climbing over one another to get to food or water.

So yeah, we are all basically f_cked at some point. The one thing that is annoying me however, are pop or movie stars telling me to donate through Red Cross. Why the hell don't they give a million bucks each? Maybe because all their cash is tied up in Haiti? Yeah.... of course it is..

 

[MisterBulbous]

Nuclear technology will be the death of us all.. but yet, required to support the rate at which the population has grown around the world.

I have been to Japan a few times... looting and rioting doesn't seem to be in the nature of the people. Sure there are gangs and there are bad people but as a country in crisis, I see them less likely to descend into rioting and looting. There is a built in sense of order and civility which you don't always see in North America. The Japanese are raised respecting rules and their elders and although it can seem robotic at times, look how they treat one another in times of crisis. Even if secretly they scoff at rules, they usually follow them. Essentially if/when mankind ends, there are really two things that will destroy us:

1. Natural disasters which will destroy infrastructure
2. Us - we'll fight and destroy ourselves like rats climbing over one another to get to food or water.

So yeah, we are all basically f_cked at some point. The one thing that is annoying me however, are pop or movie stars telling me to donate through Red Cross. Why the hell don't they give a million bucks each? Maybe because all their cash is tied up in Haiti? Yeah.... of course it is..

yeah. I'm an engineering manager at a company that is japanese owned. The difference in attitude, subordination, obedience, between my japanese guys and american guys is immense. Some of my japanese guys live in fear of violence and "rules breakers" and it's strange watching how they keep their desks and houses locked up here because most of what they see about america is guns, violence, theft, etc...

 

[Rogue]

Godspeed Fukushima 50.

 

[9ball]

yeah. I'm an engineering manager at a company that is japanese owned. The difference in attitude, subordination, obedience, between my japanese guys and american guys is immense. Some of my japanese guys live in fear of violence and "rules breakers" and it's strange watching how they keep their desks and houses locked up here because most of what they see about america is guns, violence, theft, etc...

i don't believe anything in this post. i've worked in power plants before and all i saw were a bunch of people doing their jobs.
and if you're trying to tell us that the japanese live "in fear of americans with thier houses all locked up and shut in" ....i don't believe that one bit either lol.

 

[crankyrayhanky]

<tongue in cheek> I'm an American and I too live "in fear of americans with thier houses all locked up and shut in"

<serious question> Any chance snow or rain can cool off a meltdown?
<super-serious?>What is the worst case scenario? Obviously dire for Japan and the surrounding areas- can a Nuclear Meltdown x6 reactors cause a Global nuclear winter that lasts long enough to destroy us all?

 

[MisterBulbous]

yeah. I'm an engineering manager at a company that is japanese owned. The difference in attitude, subordination, obedience, between my japanese guys and american guys is immense. Some of my japanese guys live in fear of violence and "rules breakers" and it's strange watching how they keep their desks and houses locked up here because most of what they see about america is guns, violence, theft, etc...

i don't believe anything in this post. i've worked in power plants before and all i saw were a bunch of people doing their jobs.
and if you're trying to tell us that the japanese live "in fear of americans with thier houses all locked up and shut in" ....i don't believe that one bit either lol.

wow. Where in my post did I say that the live in fear of americans, shut in, etc...". I my position I host a lot of engineers who come to america for the first time. In general, their first questions are related to crime (where is the high crime part of the city?, how do I call the police?, is it safe to go for a walk after dark?, etc). I had one particular couple come here and ask for my help in installing extra dead bolts on their house door (a home in a neighborhood near the Kentucky Toyota plant). Every time I would go out to my car to get something, they would lock the door behind me..., and another guy recently asked for a personal lock for his desk because he was worried someone would have a copy of the company-provided lock. I am by no means charactarizing the Japanese culture - merely using a few personal observations to emphasize that the general perceptions Japanese have on american culture being non-obedient - perhaps violent.

I will back-up and make sure I'm not coming across as an expert...Ialthough I travel between both countries quite a bit, I am certainly not a social scientist.

 

[Rogue]

wow. Where in my post did I say that the live in fear of americans, shut in, etc...". I my position I host a lot of engineers who come to america for the first time. In general, their first questions are related to crime (where is the high crime part of the city?, how do I call the police?, is it safe to go for a walk after dark?, etc). I had one particular couple come here and ask for my help in installing extra dead bolts on their house door (a home in a neighborhood near the Kentucky Toyota plant). Every time I would go out to my car to get something, they would lock the door behind me..., and another guy recently asked for a personal lock for his desk because he was worried someone would have a copy of the company-provided lock. I am by no means charactarizing the Japanese culture - merely using a few personal observations to emphasize that the general perceptions Japanese have on american culture being non-obedient.

Maybe because they watch our news, which amounts to you are going to die horribly, and they think our news is indicative of daily life in America. They could be accustomed to a different kind of news.

 

[harddriver]

Supposedly the IAEA has confirmed partial meltdowns in Reactors 1,2 and 3, this update from CNN and Fox News. They also have increased the radiation dose limits for the 50 operators that are still fighting this fight and they are getting sent back in.

All they can do at this point is try to keep the cores cool enough in an effort to keep the fuel from going into a molten mass of uranium and inceasing it's density and possibly breaching the bottom of the reactor vessel, which would keep the inserted Boron rods from absorbing free Neutrons effectively.

Contrary to what many people believe there are NO Homer Simpsons that work as Operators especially Reactor Operators at modern Nuclear facilities and Japan has some of the best Nuclear Engineers. The SRO test is one of the most difficult even for many established engineers, these people are not ignorant button pushers. These people know and understand the ramifications of this crisis as well as all the theories but when you have lost all your known safety systems to deal with an emergency that you have drilled and trained for years for. What do you do then?

Godspeed, I hope we get some type of break in dealing with this. They and we as the world need one here too.

 

[67Mopar]

This sounds serious...

 

[stephen sawall]

Harddriver ....

Since you have a better understanding of this than most of us ....

Is there any chance this could have a real effect for us on the west coast of the US.... what real dangers are there ?

I was a Boy Scouts .... I believe in being prepared. I rather be safe than sorry ....

..... and thank you ahead of time.

 

[RoidRage]

From what I gather they are non longer intact here at the Fukushima units in crisis, those Residual Heat Removal Heat Exchangers I spoke of probably were ripped out of the reactor/aux building from those explosions thus shearing the piping that connect to the reactor breaching the closed loop systems for the cooling water as well as a mulititude of safety systems which is why they are using sea water. Which is also why all the water keeps leaking out and exposing the fuel rods to the atmosphere as they cannot keep the reactor full, the fuel core was never to be exposed to the atmosphere. NOT GOOD!

Hopefully I am wrong in my assessment of this situation.

Thanks... Obviously being in the field you know your stuff... But I heard an announement that the Japanese Authorities have just stated that they almost have an
electrical line run to the reactors, and once implimented will restore cooling to the core..

This would indicate that the cooling systems are not ripped out, and are indeed functional, and only thing that failed were the Diezel Generator backup, and the Battery backup that were destroyed by the Tsunami...

Interesting... In the Generators case they were hardened, and not affected by the water... It was the Fuel Tanks that were washed away! Don't know how they would not think of protecting the fuel source also

Thanks,

Roid RAGE

 

[stephen sawall]

I do not blame people that have negative views of the US and it's people. Look at the history .... it is not like the US has a history of being good people doing good things. Very much the opposite. There has been plenty of selfish manipulating thief's, murders and rapist. Most of the world does not have near as bad a history as the US. Our crime rate is more than ridicules compared with most of history and the world.

Love it or leave it ..... it is no secret I plan on leaving it. It very much is my plan to live some place where people have more respect for themselves and others ..... and a lot less violence.

Not that I do not love America .... It just has become ugly.

 

[Bob Savage]

Not that I do not love America .... It just has become ugly.

People are ugly around the globe. It's just that actual penalties for being a festering pustule on the ass of society is almost non-existent here.

 

[stephen sawall]

Not that I do not love America .... It just has become ugly.

People are ugly around the globe. It's just that actual penalties for being a festering pustule on the ass of society is almost non-existent here.

Agree ....a little more fear for doing stupid stuff could help.


Bob do you think if you reboot the internet it might help with these problems in Japan ? (sp?)

 

[duesentrieb]

festering pustule .

I guess I need a link to a medical english-german dictonary, right?

edit: done. Wiki is my friend . . .

 

[Bob Savage]

Agree ....a little more fear for doing stupid stuff could help.


Bob do you think if you reboot the internet it might help with these problems in Japan ? (sp?)

Exactly, and I'm not just talking about crimes, I'm talking about those making a career of spending other peoples money and defaulting, etc.

My friend, if I thought rebooting the Internet could help that situation it would be good as done. It breaks my heart to think about the suffering that's going on over there.

 

[stephen sawall]

Agree ....a little more fear for doing stupid stuff could help.


Bob do you think if you reboot the internet it might help with these problems in Japan ? (sp?)

Exactly, and I'm not just talking about crimes, I'm talking about those making a career of spending other peoples money and defaulting, etc.

My friend, if I thought rebooting the Internet could help that situation it would be good as done. It breaks my heart to think about the suffering that's going on over there.

Once again .... agree 100 % on all accounts.

Things like this very much make me appreciate my life and how simple my problems are ....

 

[Shark Diver]

I do not blame people that have negative views of the US and it's people. Look at the history .... it is not like the US has a history of being good people doing good things. Very much the opposite. There has been plenty of selfish manipulating thief's, murders and rapist. Most of the world does not have near as bad a history as the US. Our crime rate is more than ridicules compared with most of history and the world.

Love it or leave it ..... it is no secret I plan on leaving it. It very much is my plan to live some place where people have more respect for themselves and others ..... and a lot less violence.

Not that I do not love America .... It just has become ugly.

I'm not sure I agree with this. Sure there may be a few small countries that are surrounded by protection from other countries, so their focus shifts. But name an African, Asian, Middle Eastern country that doesn't have high theft, murders and rapes. Hell some of this is even standard practice in some of these countries, plus mass poverty, starvation, slavery, slaughters and genocides. Not sure the US does anything worse than 99% of the governments out there (not that that makes it ok), and I know we do a lot more good. Even if the reasons are entirely Nationalistic.

I can idolize living on a New Zealand coast with no worries. But I'm not even sure that's the case.

 

[stephen sawall]

But name an African, Asian, Middle Eastern country that doesn't have high theft, murders and rapes.

China for one .... crime is very low there.

.... And I plan on retiring in Canada for my reasons stated above.

 

[stratotone]

Most of the world does not have near as bad a history as the US. Our crime rate is more than ridicules compared with most of history and the world.

I disagree.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... icide_rate

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_t ... per-capita

When you look at the link above, remember this: Crime statistics are often better indicators of prevalence of law enforcement and willingness to report crime, than actual prevalence.

Regarding how bad our history is...

If you want to go back in history and look at state supported genocide like what we did to the indians, there are worse examples in history - Stalinistic Purges, Pol Pot, Chinese 'cultural revolutions', etc. However, it's hard to find any other country that tried to make amends afterwards that wasn't forced to by another country or by losing a war. The government does many things for indians to make up for mistreatment in the past. FYI I'm part cherokee and live in Oklahoma. I probably know more about indian casinos, tax free smoke shops and low cost/free license plates for cars than most of you do.

Sorry Stephen, I just hate seeing people dump on the USA as being some sort of hive of death and destruction. It's not utopia, but it's not nearly as bad as most make it out to be. There are places with much lower crime rates, but then again you come across as a smart guy. Usually the smart guys are among the first to be put against the wall and shot when some of these 'crime-free utopias' have a regime change or a dictator thinks he's losing control.

Pete